Behemoth Read online

  Deryn frowned. “But krakens don’t have names. No beastie does, unless it’s a whole ship.”

  “‘Behemoth’ is not a proper name, young man, but a species. You see, this creature is not a kraken at all but something altogether new. And a military secret, so perhaps we should drop the subject.” Dr. Barlow tipped back her parasol to look into the sky. “I believe this is our airship.”

  Deryn shielded her eyes against the high sun, and saw a peculiar craft coming into view. “It’s quite … conspicuous, isn’t it, ma’am?”

  “Of course. Guests of the sultan are expected to arrive in style.”

  The Clanker airship was less than a quarter of the Leviathan’s length, but was as fancy as a wedding cake. A fringe of tassels fluttered from its airbag, and canopies of billowing silk covered the gondola, as if some Ottoman prince had decided to go soaring on his four-poster bed.

  The craft was held aloft by a long cylindrical balloon with several funnels leading up into its belly, each fed with hot air by a blazing smokestack in the shape of a monstrous head. Propellers thrust out on long and jointed arms, some pointing up, some down, the two largest pushing the craft forward. The prow was carved in the shape of a falcon’s hooked beak, and wings unfolding like straight razors were carved into the gondola’s sides.

  The craft’s propellers turned and twisted, until it had settled gently on the scrub grass of the airfield.

  As a short gangway unfolded from its gondola, Dr. Barlow closed her parasol and pointed it at the egg box. “If you please, Mr. Sharp.”

  “Invaluable, that’s me,” Deryn said, lifting the box with a grunt.

  She followed the lady boffin up the gangway to an open platform surrounded by a low railing, like the top deck of a sailing ship. The propeller wash swirled about them, ruffling the veil tucked into Dr. Barlow’s bowler.

  The crew were all dark-skinned men, but they weren’t wearing desert robes, like the Africans that Deryn had seen from the elephant’s howdah the day before. Instead they wore silk uniforms and tall turbans of brilliant red and orange. Two of them took the egg box from Deryn, lashing it fast to metal cleats on the deck.

  One of the men wore a tall conical hat, his eyes protected by piloting goggles. Some sort of mechanical beastie perched on his shoulder, like an owl with big eyes and a wide-open mouth. A tiny cylinder sat on the machine’s chest, a metal stylus scratching against its spinning surface.

  The man stepped forward and bowed to Dr. Barlow.

  “Peace be upon you, madam. I am the Kizlar Agha. Welcome aboard.”

  The lady boffin replied in a language Deryn didn’t recognize, one made of softer sounds than German. The man smiled, repeating the same phrase as he bowed to Deryn.

  “Midshipman Dylan Sharp,” she said, bowing in return. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Agha.”

  Dr. Barlow laughed. “Kizlar Agha is a title, Mr. Sharp, not a name. He is the head of the palace guard and of the treasury. The most important man in the empire, after the sultan and grand vizier. A carrier of important messages.”

  “And important visitors as well,” the man said, raising a hand. The smokestacks belched fire, sending ripples of heat through the air.

  Deryn’s nose caught the sweet smell of burning propane. She shuddered and clenched her jaw, turning to grip the rail as the airship lifted into the sky.

  “Are you unwell, Mr. Sharp?” the Kizlar Agha said, leaning closer to her. “Airsickness seems a strange malady for an airman.”

  “I’m quite all right, sir,” Deryn said stiffly. “It’s just that hot-air balloons make me a wee bit nervous.”

  The man crossed his arms. “I assure you, the Imperial Airyacht Stamboul is as safe as any airbeast.”

  “I’m sure it is, sir,” Deryn said, but her hands still gripped the railing. The smokestacks belched fire again, roaring like an angry tigeresque.

  “We had something of a battle yesterday,” Dr. Barlow said, putting a cool hand against Deryn’s cheek. “And alarms and excursions again last night. Mr. Sharp has been quite busy, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, yes. I heard of the Young Turks pestering you,” the Kizlar Agha said. “Revolutionaries are everywhere now. But they will not trouble us at the palace, nor in the sky.”

  The craft had cleared the airfield fence now, and the protesters at the gate looked as small as ants below.

  While Dr. Barlow and the Kizlar Agha talked, Deryn stared down at the city, trying to ignore the air wrinkling with heat around her. The tangled streets of Istanbul were soon beneath the Stamboul, the metal flash of walkers glinting through the veil of smoke. Gyrothopters flittered past, looking as delicate as butterflies.

  Alek was down there somewhere, she supposed. Unless he’d already headed into the wilds of the empire, where the Air Service maps showed only mountains and dusty plains on the way to the Far East.

  When the Kizlar Agha returned to his duties, Dr. Barlow joined Deryn at the railing. “Are you quite sure you weren’t bumped on the head last night, Mr. Sharp? You look unwell.”

  “No, I’m feeling brilliant,” Deryn said, gripping the handrail tighter. She wasn’t going to spout off about her father’s accident again. Best to change the subject. “It’s just that I had an odd chat with Count Volger over breakfast … about our missing beastie.”

  “Really? How enterprising of you.”

  “He said he saw it last night. The beastie must’ve hatched before Alek left, and the daft boy took it with him.” Deryn turned to Dr. Barlow and narrowed her eyes. “But you already knew that, didn’t you, ma’am?”

  “The possibility had crossed my mind.” The lady boffin shrugged. “It seemed the only logical explanation for the creature’s disappearance.”

  “Aye, but it wasn’t just logic, was it? You knew Alek would try to escape before we left Istanbul, so you put him on egg duty last night.”

  A smile appeared behind Dr. Barlow’s veil. “Why, Mr. Sharp, are you accusing me of scheming?”

  “Call it what you like, ma’am, but Alek was always complaining that you rearranged the heaters when he was watching the eggs. Made it hotter for him than for me.” As Deryn spoke her suspicions aloud, more pieces fell into place. “And you never wanted me to visit while he was on egg duty. So that when the beastie hatched, it would be just him in the machine room, all alone!”

  Dr. Barlow looked away and said sternly. “Are you certain you weren’t bumped on the head last night, Mr. Sharp? I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the beasties inside those eggs,” Deryn said, staring at the cargo box. “What are they, anyway?”

  “They are a military secret, young man.”

  “Aye, and now we’re taking one to this sultan fellow. A Clanker aristocrat, just like Alek!”

  Deryn stared straight at Dr. Barlow, waiting for a reply. It was the rudest she’d ever dared be with the lady boffin, but between the sleepless night and this morning’s realizations, anger had taken control of her tongue.

  It was all starting to make sense. Why Dr. Barlow had been willing to keep Alek’s secret from the officers, and why she’d put him on egg duty almost from the start. She’d wanted one of the eggs to hatch while Alek was alone in that room.

  But what on earth was the beastie’s purpose? And why hadn’t Alek simply left the barking thing behind?

  After a moment of cold stares between them, Dr. Barlow broke the silence. “Did Count Volger say anything specific about the creature?”

  “Not really.” Deryn shrugged. “He may have mentioned something about strangling it to keep it quiet.”

  Dr. Barlow’s eyebrows shot up, and Deryn smiled. Two could play at this game of keeping secrets.

  “But I think he was just trying to be clever.”

  “Indeed,” Dr. Barlow said coldly. “There appears to be a lot of that going about.”

  Deryn held the woman’s gaze. “I’m not trying to be clever, ma’am. I just want to know … Is Alek in danger from t
hat beastie?”

  “Don’t be absurd, Mr. Sharp.” Dr. Barlow leaned closer, lowering her voice. “The perspicacious loris, as it is known, is quite harmless. I would never put Alek in danger.”

  “Then you did try to make an egg hatch while he was in there with them!”

  Dr. Barlow looked away. “Yes, the loris was designed with a high degree of nascent fixation. Like a baby duck, it bonds with the first person it sees.”

  “And you made it bond with Alek!”

  “A necessary improvisation. After we crashed in the Alps, it seemed that we wouldn’t reach Istanbul in time. I didn’t want to see all my years of work wasted.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’m quite fond of Alek, and wish him every advantage in his travels. To those who listen carefully, the perspicacious loris can be quite helpful.”

  “Helpful?” Deryn asked. “How, exactly?”

  “By being perspicacious, of course.”

  Deryn furrowed her eyebrows, puzzling over what “perspicacious” might mean. She wondered if she could trust the lady boffin’s words at all. Dr. Barlow always seemed to have a larger plan than whatever she let on.

  “But it wasn’t just to help him,” Deryn said. “Alek’s an important Clanker, just like the sultan, and that’s why you wanted him to have this loris beastie.”

  “It is as I said yesterday.” Dr. Barlow gestured at the beaklike prow before them, at monstrous heads belching fire. “Unlike the other Clanker powers, the Ottomans have not forgotten the web of life. And I think that in his short time with us, Alek may have become amenable to reason as well.”

  “Reason?” Deryn swallowed. “But what does some newborn beastie have to do with reason?”

  “Nothing, of course, as per my grandfather’s law: ‘No fabricated creature shall show human reason.’” The lady boffin waved her hand. “Take it as a figure of speech, Mr. Sharp. But one thing is certain—this war will make a mess of Europe’s royal houses. So it’s possible that young Alek may one day be as important as any sultan, proper royalty or not.”

  “Aye, that’s what Count Volger was saying too.”

  “Was he?” Dr. Barlow drummed her fingers on the railing. “How interesting.”

  Just ahead, the strait was shining in the noon sun. Almost directly below were two huge buildings of marble and stone—mosques, of course, their domed roofs like giant shields arrayed against the sky, their minarets thrusting up like spears around them. The plaza between the buildings was crowded with people, their faces turning upward as the Stamboul’s shadow slid across them.

  The Kizlar Agha shouted orders, and the propellers shifted on their long, spindly arms. The aircraft began to descend toward what looked like a park surrounded by high walls. Inside it were dozens of low buildings, all stitched together with paths and covered walkways, and one great cluster of still more domes and minarets, almost another city within the palace walls.

  “Perhaps we should keep an eye on Count Volger, then,” Dr. Barlow said.

  Deryn nodded, remembering the wildcount’s offer to tell her more about the beastie if she brought him news from outside. He was certainly open to an exchange of information.

  “Well, ma’am, he did say he’d give me fencing lessons.”

  The lady boffin smiled. “Then, dear boy, you shall have to learn to fence.”

  The Stamboul descended just inside the palace walls, in an overgrown garden the size of a cricket field.

  The Kizlar Agha stood at the airship’s prow, shouting directions to the propeller men, making adjustments all the way down. Deryn soon saw why—there was barely room to land an airship. But the craft settled precisely at a spot where five paths crossed, as soft as a kiss, like a gaudy pavilion completing the garden’s design. The fronds of palm trees around them shivered in the wash from the airship’s propellers.

  The gangway dropped, and the Kizlar Agha led Deryn, Dr. Barlow, and the two crewmen with the egg box down into the sultan’s garden.

  A hundred windows looked down upon them, but all were covered with metal lattices that shimmered gold in the sunlight. Deryn wondered if there were people watching them through the narrow slats, courtiers and advisers, or the sultan’s famous harem of countless wives.

  This was nothing like Buckingham Palace, where Deryn had watched the changing of the Royal Lionesque Guard her first day in London. That was four stories tall and as square as a cake. But here the buildings were low and surrounded by colonnades, their arches decorated with checkerboards of black and white marble, as shiny as piano keys. Steam pipes wound across the mosaicked walls like message lizard tubes, sweating and huffing with the energies inside them. Guards stood at every door, Africans in bright silk uniforms armed with halberds and scimitars.

  Deryn wondered what it would be like to live among all this spectacle and pomp, all of it designed to dazzle the eye. Had poor Alek grown up in a place this fancy? It would be enough to drive you mad, having a million servants watching your every move.

  The guards all made elaborate bows to the Kizlar Agha, murmuring the same greeting that Dr. Barlow had used.

  “Is that Turkish for ‘hello’?” Deryn whispered, wondering if she should learn the phrase.

  “Arabic. Many languages are spoken here in the palace.” Dr. Barlow glanced up at the steam pipes. “Let us hope that German is not one.”

  Soon they were led to a large marble building that stood apart from the rest of the palace. Three blazing smokestacks thrust skyward from its roof, and the sound of grinding gears rumbled within.

  The Kizlar Agha stopped before an archway sealed by two stone doors. “We enter the throne room of Sultan Mehmed V, Lord of the Horizons.”

  He clapped his hands three times, and the doors opened with a hiss of steam. A smell rolled out—burning coal and engine grease covered over with incense.

  The throne room was dark after the brilliant sunlight outside, and Deryn could hardly see at first. But before her rose what seemed to be a giant sitting cross-legged, as large as the iron golems in the street the day before. It was a metal statue dressed in countless yards of black silk, a sash of silver cloth spread across its medaled chest, and a crimson fez the size of a bathtub on its strange horned head.

  As her eyes adjusted, Deryn noticed a man beneath the statue. He was dressed in exactly the same clothes, and sat on his silk divan in the same position, cross-legged, his hands resting on his knees.

  “Welcome, Dr. Barlow,” he said, his right hand turning over to show an empty palm.

  Behind him the statue stirred, mimicking his movements. It was an automaton—the whole throne room one huge mechanism! But the rumble of engines and gears was muffled to a whisper by thick tapestries and stone walls, so the huge statue seemed almost alive.

  In the corner of Deryn’s vision the lady boffin was curtsying smoothly, as if she met giant statues every day. Deryn recovered from her surprise and bowed from the waist, the way Alek always had when addressing the Leviathan’s officers. She realized she had no idea how to behave around a barking emperor, and wished the lady boffin had spared a moment to tell her.

  “My Lord Sultan,” Dr. Barlow said. “I bring you greetings from His Majesty, King George.”

  “Peace be upon him,” the sultan said, bowing his head a little. Behind him the giant automaton followed in kind.

  “I bring you a gift as well.” Dr. Barlow gestured at the egg box.

  The sultan’s eyebrows rose. Deryn found herself relieved that the automaton didn’t make facial expressions. The giant machine was uncanny enough as it was.

  “An odd shape for a dreadnought,” the sultan said. “And a bit small for a behemoth.”

  After a moment of uncomfortable silence, the lady boffin cleared her throat. “Our little gift is not, of course, a replacement for the Osman or its companion creature. Though His Majesty regrets that unfortunate affair.”

  “Does he?”

  “Profusely,” Dr. Barlow said. “We have only borrowed the Osman because our need is greater
. Britain is at war, and your empire is—and hopefully shall stay—at peace.”

  “Peace has its burdens too.” The sultan crossed his arms, and the statue followed suit.

  Watching more closely now, Deryn noticed that the machine’s movements were a bit stiff, like a sailor caught with too much rum under his belt and trying to act sober. Perhaps to aid the illusion, the sultan moved slowly and carefully, like an actor in a pantomime show. Deryn wondered if he controlled the automaton himself, or whether there were engineers watching from some hidden cubbyhole, their hands scurrying across levers and dials.

  Somehow, wondering about its inner workings made the huge contraption less unsettling.

  “I am sure your cares are great, My Lord Sultan.” Dr. Barlow looked toward the egg box. “And we hope that this fabricated creature, humble though it is, will prove a welcome distraction from them.”

  “The Germans give us railroads, airships, and wireless towers,” the sultan replied. “All the glories of the mekanzimat. They train our armies and service our machines. They rebuilt this palace and helped us crush the revolution six years ago. And all your king can offer is a distraction?”

  The sultan gestured at the egg box, and the automaton’s hand stretched out across the room, stirring the air as it passed over Deryn’s head. She hunched her shoulders, wondering how powerful those giant fingers were.

  Dr. Barlow didn’t seem ruffled at all. “Perhaps it is only a start,” she said, bowing her head a little more. “But we offer this gift with hope for a happier future.”

  “A gift? After so many humiliations?” The sultan looked at the egg again. “Perhaps we have been distracted long enough by your gifts.”

  Suddenly the giant fingers wrapped around the box, closing into a fist. The crackle of splintering wood echoed from the stone walls, and pieces skittered like matchsticks across the floor. The egg burst with a sickening crack, and translucent strands oozed between the metal fingers. As they pooled together on the stone floor, the reek of sulfur joined coal smoke and incense.